First Lieutenant Tony Reinhard

Variety & Diversity

Maj. Jonathan Craig Taylor, Family Physician talks about the benefits of being an army doctor.

My name is Jonathan Craig Taylor. I'm a family physician, major in the United States Army, stationed here at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

Coming out of high school, I received a scholarship from the United States Army to go to Duke University, receiving help with tuition, books and living expenses.

I think I actually knew I wanted to be a doctor before I wanted to join the Army. The Army just was a great for me to do that. It's a great place for me to get a start.

And it has certainly given me an incredible experience that I don't think I would have gotten anyplace else.

One of the real benefits of being an Army doctor is I get to do a much wider variety and a greater diversity of medical care than I would if I was in private practice. Certainly, very, very few people are able to do full-spectrum care anymore.

And very few people have the unique opportunity to travel to foreign countries, and to do medical care there as well. In AMEDD, we have the real privilege of taking care of America's sons and daughters that are sacrificing so much to defend the freedom of this country.

It's not only a great patient population to serve, but it's also a group that you know has all their medicines paid for and the studies paid for. So it makes it a nice environment to practice. One of the great things about being a doctor in the Army and here at Womack is the doctors collaborate to provide the absolute best medical care we can to the patients.

I've been married almost 10 years to my, my lovely wife Amy. And we have our new son, Jonathan. He loves to come to all the parks that are on post and loves to get on the playground equipment, and loves to swing on the swings. We chose to live on post because the housing really has been quite wonderful here. But, I feel very confident that Amy is safe and secure when I'm away.

Every father, of course, hopes that his son is proud of him. And I really hope that my son looks back at my time in the service and is proud of what I've done.